Nick Jimenez

Spelling bee tests youngsters under pressure

Want to see someone trying to perform under pressure? Want to see tension and excitement build as a field of contestants tries to come out on top? Want to see the agony of defeat and thrill of victory?
   Well, forget about "Who wants to a millionaire?" The television game show is only penny ante. And forget about Las Vegas and the gaming wheels. That's only money. And don't even talk to me about grown men trying to strike a little white ball into a hole in the ground for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
   No, for real instances of grace under pressure, I invite you to what might seem a most prosaic endeavor: the spelling bee.
   Everywhere across the land, young students have been studying and practicing for months, preparing for their local bees, hoping and dreaming for their shot at the big time, the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. this summer. But to get there, that's the hurdle.
   Olympians have it easier, in my mind. The fast runner and the agile jumper have to work and sweat, but it all starts with natural talent. No one is naturally a good speller.
   A lot of us bless the invention of "spell check" on the computer and we forever thank Mr. Webster for his dictionary. In fact, a lot of us can muddle through spelling the most difficult word after a couple of stabs and a little digging into the reference books.
   But imagine you are an eighth grader, or maybe even a second grader, and you are standing on a stage in front of the whole school, with maybe your parents out in the audience, too, and the spelling bee pronouncer has just asked you to spell "dillydally."
   Are we talking beads of sweat? Can you envision brain lock? Put most people in front of an audience, looking out into that sea of eyes, and they can't remember their own names, their kids' names (that actually happened to me), much less spelling a word that has that impossible combination of double-Ls.
   And if the kid can manage to come out on top at his school, things only get tougher. All the local school winners meet in head-to-head competition in the regional spelling bee; the Caller-Times South Texas Regional Spelling Bee will be held in March. The regional winner then moves on to the national contest.
   The real question here is, what does all this have to do with education? A lot. Spelling bees, just like the Academic Decathlon, ImagiNation (formerly Odyssey of the Mind), University Interscholastic League contests and every form of academic competition, are really about thinking on your feet, having quick command of the facts and keeping your composure under pressure. And those are among the important tools that a school can teach a student.
   Anyone who has been a judge, whether at a spelling bee or any other academic competition, has only admiration for every kid who puts his ego and pride at risk. There is nothing that can look more crushed than a kid who hears the bell ring signaling that he has misspelled a word and is out of the competition. Or the look of absolute terror on the student whose mind has just gone blank during a speech contest, stops to gather himself up and asks to start over again. There is a lot to be learned about resiliency, too.
   We hear a lot these days about the injustice of tests as a measurement of students. No test, the objectors say, can measure how much a kid knows. Sure, and the spelling bee is no sure indicator of how good a speller any individual kid really is.
   But as adults we don't usually get to pick the questions we face every day or the competition we tackle. And the kid who passes the standardized test or who completes even one round of the spelling bee has put his or her mind and heart into the subject and is ready to use a hard-won education.
   Whether it's a spelling bee or the most obscure UIL competition, the scenario may be the closest thing to the toughest contest of all: life.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.)
  
  

 
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